Honourable senators, my next question for the leader concerns the Trudeau government’s promise to plant 2 billion trees by 2030. In a delayed answer provided in February, Natural Resources Canada said it was working to establish cost-sharing agreements with each of the provinces and territories, which the department said would be vital to the success of this program.

Leader, the program update that Minister Wilkinson released yesterday says the government is still “moving toward” agreements with the provinces and territories.

Could you make inquiries and tell us which agreements remain outstanding and why? Could you also find out how many trees have been planted through this program to date, broken down by province and territory?

Leader, as I have raised with you before, this is a significant discrepancy between what your government says this program will cost versus the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s estimate. The PBO’s cost estimate was $5.94 billion: That is almost twice the amount the government put forward in 2019 of $3.16 billion. Yesterday’s program update from Minister Wilkinson used the figure $3.2 billion.

Leader, has your government revised its cost estimate for this program? If so, what is it?